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Yemeni women sign up to fight terror
More at link:Afrah al-Ansi pulls back her camouflage jacket to show me the pistol strapped to her belt. She travelled to work this morning wearing a veil and a full-length black balto, an all-encompassing cloak which is traditional dress for women in Yemen. But now she is dressed in fatigues, heavy black boots and shades. Afrah, 23, is one of 20 women recruited to join Yemen's elite counter-terrorism unit (CTU) last summer. Only 13 recruits have stayed the course, after a rigorous training programme that has taught them how to enter a house by force, drive a Hummer military vehicle and shoot. Yahya Saleh, chief of staff of Yemen's Central Security Forces, sponsored the creation of the women's unit and supervises the CTU. He says the women's main purpose is to follow their male colleagues on house raids and search any women they encounter. "Male terrorists often disguise themselves as women in order to evade detection and arrest, but Yemen's strict social code means that women suspects cannot be touched by the men on the unit," he explains. Yemen's Political Security Organisation runs a separate team of women, trained to gather and assess intelligence, but Afrah and her colleagues in the CTU are the only women to put themselves at the sharp end of Yemeni counter-terrorism. "At the beginning, we were afraid," she says, "but now we're getting used to our job." Posted by: Thravirt Thath7880 2007-04-02 |
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